Posted on 03/29/2019 6:24:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
A doomsday fungus known as Bd has condemned more species to extinction than any other pathogen.
A century ago, a strain of pandemic flu killed up to 100 million people—5 percent of the world’s population. In 2013, a new mystery illness swept the western coast of North America, causing starfish to disintegrate. In 2015, a big-nosed Asian antelope known as the saiga lost two-thirds of its population—some 200,000 individuals—to what now looks to be a bacterial infection. But none of these devastating infections comes close to the destructive power of Bd—a singularly apocalyptic fungus that’s unrivaled in its ability not only to kill animals, but to delete entire species from existence.
Bd—Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in full—kills frogs and other amphibians by eating away at their skin and triggering fatal heart attacks. It’s often said that the fungus has caused the decline or extinction of 200 amphibian species, but that figure is almost two decades out-of-date. New figures, compiled by a team led by Ben Scheele from the Australian National University, are much worse.
Scheele’s team estimates that the fungus has caused the decline of 501 amphibian species—about 6.5 percent of the known total. Of these, 90 have been wiped out entirely. Another 124 have fallen by more than 90 percent, and their odds of recovery are slim. Never in recorded history has a single disease burned down so much of the tree of life. “It rewrote our understanding of what disease could do to wildlife,” Scheele says.
“It’s a terrifying summary,” says Jodi Rowley from the Australian Museum. “We knew it was bad, but this really confirms how bad. And these are just the declines we know about.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Eventually, there would be no more hosts if it keeps this up, or if any survive, they may not be very forgiving. Even for a fungus, not very smart. My advise would be for it to ease up on this extinction business.
Just wait for it to jump species into humans.
Microbes aren’t “intelligent.” They adapt in ways which are intelligent in some ways. Unfortunately, they adapt only by the absolutely lethal varieties ceasing to exist after they’ve killed off their host. And in this case, their host isn’t a single organism, but an entire order of organisms.
Vaccinating all those toads will cost money!!
“Have we had a movie on that yet? If not, it is coming.”
Limony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events.
Sounds like the effort worked.
—Microbes aren’t “intelligent.”
Of course not; I was writing allegorically. If anything, “intelligence” resembles the behavior of populations of organisms over long periods of time. Read some of the works of Gerald Edelman, if you have a lot of spare time.
You really don't spend much time in the woods, do you?
Well, it was air travel and shipping that really did spread the fungus around the world, so yeah, this one we did kind of help along.
Hell, I was impressed that throughout the entire article not a single word was mentioned about global warming though, it’s amazing they didn’t somehow work that into the narrative.
LOL!
Bd— (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ) in full—kills frogs and other amphibians by eating away at their skin and triggering fatal heart attacks.
It’s often said that the fungus has caused the decline or extinction of 200 amphibian species,
but that figure is almost two decades out-of-date.
Scheele’s team estimates that the fungus has caused the decline of 501 amphibian species—about 6.5 percent of the known total.
Of these, 90 have been wiped out entirely.
Another 124 have fallen by more than 90 percent, and their odds of recovery are slim.
Never in recorded history has a single disease burned down so much of the tree of life.
At this point of the study, the fungus is known only to affect amphibians due to it's dependency on moisture,
however, what are the chances of the fungus trans-mutating to affect food supply or to infect mammals ?
Not to mention the labor involved in sticking needles into their little green butts. PETA is gonna be all over this one.
I gives up, nully.
Youz Winz Teh Thredd!
#3 “Beto” O’Rouke should not have eaten dirt.
Do tell!!! What is terrifying about a nursing home?! Sad probably...Terrifying???
I see what you did there. :D
The dude is good, I’ll give him that.
[at first I only saw the ping and was like WTH?]
:D
Yikes. Thanks for the ping, TIK.
I spend a lot of time gardening and taking care of a lawn. If I have one tomato in a square foot I pull 100 weeds out of that foot. But I do LOVE trees bushes and flowers and most plants so....... you win.
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